


Gardening in Difficult Conditions

by BarPurple



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Dark Castle Fluff, F/M, Pre-Relationship, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 08:35:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10240454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarPurple/pseuds/BarPurple
Summary: Belle hadn't counted on the problems she would face trying to raise plants in the gardens of the Dark Castle.





	

**Author's Note:**

> from @writing-prompt-s list of 100 Dialogue Prompts I give you a RumBelled #10 “It’s not my fault that the snails committed mutiny!”

Belle’s gardening efforts at the Dark Castle were not going well. She wasn’t quite ready to admit defeat, but would perhaps allow that she was failing miserably to keep plants thriving. She couldn’t understand it, she wasn’t blessed with a green thumb, but in Avonlea she’d been successful in growing herbs and flowers. Now she couldn’t get anything beyond shoots and buds, each filled with promise until they were devoured by slugs. She tried every trick she knew to protect her seedlings, from surrounding them with crushed pottery, or raw sheep fleece to cages of copper, but the pests found a way through each time.

It wasn’t until she ventured out one morning while the dew was still thick on the ground that she discovered the true nature of the problem she was facing. A dozen snails were slithering away from her plants, their bellies no doubt fat from her ruined crocus plants. There was something regimented about the way the snails were moving, she’d never seen such straight slime trails before. She groaned as the realisation of what she was dealing with hit her; these where no ordinary snails.

One of the many legends about Rumplestiltskin was that he was attracted to sorrow and misfortune; Belle couldn’t confirm that one way or the other, but the master of the castle could be relied on to pop up at annoying moments, a skill he proved by appearing at her shoulder and tutting at the ruined plants.

“Gardening not so easy up in the mountains is it dearie?”

Belle was in no mood to endure his teasing today; she stripped off her gloves and slapped them against his chest.

“It’s not my fault that the snails committed mutiny! You transformed them. You deal with them.”

Rumple sighed as his maid stomped away. He tapped the gloves against his palm for a long moment. She did have a point the snails were his fault, but it was her fault that he’d stopped crushing them under his boot moments after they were transformed. Perhaps putting them in the garden hadn’t been his best idea. He tucked her gloves into his waistcoat pocket and pushed his sleeves back from his hands.

“Alrighty you slimy pests, time to move to a new home.”


End file.
